Tuesday, August 01, 2017

The Otter's Tale ~ Simon Cooper

The Moor Otters public arts initiative has really galvanised us all into becoming Otter Spotters as we trot round with our little books, finding the hundred otters created by local artists, scattered at locations many and various around the moors. Each otter is beautifully painted and waiting to be found...Sherlock Holmes assisted me with 'Otterhound of the Baskervilles' for which I was grateful.

The Visitor's Centre shop at Princetown is bursting with furry otters of all shapes and sizes beseeching for forever homes, and of course Simon Cooper's Wainwright Prize short-listed book The Otter's Tale is much in evidence too...

As we in Devon invented Tarka the Otter (well, thank you kindly Henry Williamson) I'm claiming a unique affinity before all the Ring of Bright Water brigade butt in. In any case I read Tarka first when I was about twelve, and still have my beloved 3/6d copy, so that seals it.

Conservationist Simon Cooper's mill house, straddling a small chalk stream in southern England, proves to be an ideal location for the otters to call home, and for him to observe them without interference whilst imagining their fictional life. It's a clever premise that works like magic and I was instantly committed to the adventure. In ways that other books on the Wainwright short list have also demonstrated, the overlap of issues and events has been fascinating. The Otter's Tale is the optimistic, against-the-odds confirmation of much that Stephen Moss hoped for in Wild Kingdom, because the otter is a species almost driven to extinction when our backs were turned and, yet again, it was the insecticides that did for them.

The true reach and impact of insecticides far exceeded anything I may have given serious thought to in the past, so reading this short list has really focused my attention. Whilst the pigeons and songbirds died by direct ingestion, and the foxes, falcons and barn owls ate the dead birds, it was the otters who absorbed the chemicals from the run-off into the rivers and became infertile. Salvation came from where least expected, because ironically it was the hunters who flagged up the decline which led to protected status for the otter in 1978.

Meanwhile Simon Cooper weaves the story of Kuschta in and around these fascinating facts as she finds herself deserted by her mother and must find territory and a mate of her own. I had no idea that otter cubs have a prolonged dependency on their mothers of more than a year, at which point they will just be 'left' alone to fend (prepare to bite your lip). Along the way other cubs may just have been abandoned to die (more lip-biting) in order to maximise food supplies and in Kuschta's case this is exactly what happens with her own brood but thus allowing Willow, Lutran and Wisp to thrive.

I'm not saying any more but trust me, I was deeply involved in the lives and varied fortunes of this little family...it's hard not to invest them with human emotions, a fatal mistake of course as many have found out to their cost.

If you like otters you'll love The Otter's Tale with its good and optimistic news that otters are now thriving in every county in the country.

Meanwhile here's another favourite from the Otter Spotting trail and if you are in and around Dartmoor keep an eye out for them. The booklets are available at the National Park Visitor's Centre in Princetown (and probably elsewhere) and you'll find the very handsome 'Waterline' (depicting all the rivers that have their source on Dartmoor) in the gardens of the Bedford Hotel in Tavistock.

Comments

The Moor Otters public arts initiative has really galvanised us all into becoming Otter Spotters as we trot round with our little books, finding the hundred otters created by local artists, scattered at locations many and various around the moors. Each otter is beautifully painted and waiting to be found...Sherlock Holmes assisted me with 'Otterhound of the Baskervilles' for which I was grateful.

The Visitor's Centre shop at Princetown is bursting with furry otters of all shapes and sizes beseeching for forever homes, and of course Simon Cooper's Wainwright Prize short-listed book The Otter's Tale is much in evidence too...

As we in Devon invented Tarka the Otter (well, thank you kindly Henry Williamson) I'm claiming a unique affinity before all the Ring of Bright Water brigade butt in. In any case I read Tarka first when I was about twelve, and still have my beloved 3/6d copy, so that seals it.

Conservationist Simon Cooper's mill house, straddling a small chalk stream in southern England, proves to be an ideal location for the otters to call home, and for him to observe them without interference whilst imagining their fictional life. It's a clever premise that works like magic and I was instantly committed to the adventure. In ways that other books on the Wainwright short list have also demonstrated, the overlap of issues and events has been fascinating. The Otter's Tale is the optimistic, against-the-odds confirmation of much that Stephen Moss hoped for in Wild Kingdom, because the otter is a species almost driven to extinction when our backs were turned and, yet again, it was the insecticides that did for them.

The true reach and impact of insecticides far exceeded anything I may have given serious thought to in the past, so reading this short list has really focused my attention. Whilst the pigeons and songbirds died by direct ingestion, and the foxes, falcons and barn owls ate the dead birds, it was the otters who absorbed the chemicals from the run-off into the rivers and became infertile. Salvation came from where least expected, because ironically it was the hunters who flagged up the decline which led to protected status for the otter in 1978.

Meanwhile Simon Cooper weaves the story of Kuschta in and around these fascinating facts as she finds herself deserted by her mother and must find territory and a mate of her own. I had no idea that otter cubs have a prolonged dependency on their mothers of more than a year, at which point they will just be 'left' alone to fend (prepare to bite your lip). Along the way other cubs may just have been abandoned to die (more lip-biting) in order to maximise food supplies and in Kuschta's case this is exactly what happens with her own brood but thus allowing Willow, Lutran and Wisp to thrive.

I'm not saying any more but trust me, I was deeply involved in the lives and varied fortunes of this little family...it's hard not to invest them with human emotions, a fatal mistake of course as many have found out to their cost.

If you like otters you'll love The Otter's Tale with its good and optimistic news that otters are now thriving in every county in the country.

Meanwhile here's another favourite from the Otter Spotting trail and if you are in and around Dartmoor keep an eye out for them. The booklets are available at the National Park Visitor's Centre in Princetown (and probably elsewhere) and you'll find the very handsome 'Waterline' (depicting all the rivers that have their source on Dartmoor) in the gardens of the Bedford Hotel in Tavistock.

Constants...

Team Tolstoy

Team TolstoyA year-long shared read of War & Peace through the centenary year of Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's death, starting on his birthday, September 9th 2010.
Everyone is welcome to board the troika and read along, meeting here on the 9th of every month to chat in comments about the book.

Team Tolstoy BookmarkDon't know your Bolkonskys from your Rostovs?
An aide memoire that can be niftily printed and laminated into a double-sided bookmark.

Port Eliot Festival

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